Other Initiatives

This page informs about other engagements of the ERCIS Omni-channel lab powered by Arvato.

SMA_RISE

The rise of social media has an immense impact on society. It facilitates public discourse and connects people from around the world. However, it also comes with impotant challenges such as the rise of fake news and malicious social bots. SMA_RISE is an interdisciplinary, global network of excellent scholars and practitioners for Social Media Analysis (SMA) in crisis communication & society. Its goal is to enable knowledge sharing among international experts and to develop new solutions for the challenges in SMA.

The programme has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

In a recent interview, Professor Stefan Stieglitz from the University of Duisburg-Essen and Karsten Kraume from Arvato CRM Solutions discuss the importance and applications of Social Media Analaysis and the goal of RISE_SMA.

Social Media Analytics Competence Center

The Social Media Analytics Competence Center (SMA CC) emerged from the BMBF funded project PropStop. Its initial idea - the detection of automatically generated propaganda in online media - has become a major issue in the societal and scientific discussion. The newly founded competence center aims at reaching beyond the boundaries of PropStop and establishes a community of researchers and practitioners to address the topics of Disinformation, Propaganda, and Manipulation via Online Media in a multidisciplinary approach.

Karsten Kraume and Arvato CRM Solutions have joined the Competence Center as collaborating partners which will further strenghen the partnership between the ERCIS and Arvato. In particular, it will enlarge the focus of the collaboration beyond CRM topics, towards IT-security as well as socio-economic aspects.

Up-to-date information on the Competence Center is available at sma.ercis.org.

CLAIRE

New EU initiative puts humans at the very center of AI research

On 10 April 2018, 25 European countries signed a pledge to increase funding and coordination of AI Research and, two weeks later, the European Commission published initial plans to fund AI research and innovation with around 20 billion Euros.

On the back of this, more than 1,000 leading experts in AI signed a letter calling on European and national leaders to support a coordinated, pan-European initiative similar to CERN. Highlighting that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the way we live and work in the future, they call for the development of artificial intelligence that complements, rather than replaces, human intelligence.

This initiative, called “CLAIRE” (an acronym for “Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe”), was launched by Dr Holger Hoos, Professor of Machine Learning at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, Dr Morten Irgens, Vice Rector at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway, and Prof. Philipp Slusallek, Scientific Director at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Germany.

Since its launch in June, the CLAIRE initiative has attracted almost 2,000 supporters and established common ground with the ELLIS initiative (European Lab for Learning & Intelligent Systems), aimed at strengthening outstanding and free basic research in the area of machine learning.

ERCIS partner, Arvato CRM Solutions, is one of its first supporters from industry: “AI is a set of technologies that is rapidly changing the world we live in. For our industry, it is a game changer and a major source of innovation. CLAIRE’s emphasis on the ‘human element’ and the spirit of cross-country collaboration is completely aligned with our company DNA. We're therefore delighted to be amongst the first industry supporters of this important pan-European initiative. It perfectly complements the work of our own AI R&D teams in India, Ireland, Germany, France and Spain, and our long-term academic partnership with ERCIS (the European Research Center for Information Systems), ensuring that we’re involved in the very latest developments and innovations in AI.” Said Karsten Kraume – Member of the Board at Arvato CRM Solutions and Board of Advisors at BPM Rise, and Advisory Board, ERCIS.

In addition, the initiative is supported by Prof. Heike Trautmann and Prof. Jörg Becker, directors of the ERCIS research network. The ERCIS has a longstanding history of excellence in the field of information systems. With its inter-disciplinary network of universities, individual researchers and companies, it is an ideal partner to strengthen the AI research in Europe.

You can learn more about the CLAIRE initiative and their supporters at claire-ai.org

MASTIS

The main aim of the project Establishing Modern Master-level Studies in Information Systems (MASTIS) is to improve in Information Systems according to the needs of the modern society. MASTIS will enable the Partner Country & EU Universities to modernize education in Information System based on the student-oriented principals, strong university-enterprise cooperation and modern approaches to the education. It will give the Partner Country Universities an opportunity to prepare competitive specialists for Ukrainian, Montenegrin and global labor market.The lab supports the project with ongoing exchange of experience.

RISE_BPM

RISE_BPM is the first favourably evaluated project proposal submitted by the University of Münster in cooperation with ERCIS partners within the Horizon 2020 EU funding programme. The RISE_BPM project is aimed at networking world-leading research institutions and corporate innovators to develop new horizons for Business Process Management (BPM). The project consortium, besides the University of Münster as the coordinator, includes partners from Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, and Liechtenstein. RISE_BPM will last for four years and started May 1st 2015. Arvato is part of the Board of advisors of this project.

The ERCIS Omni-Channel Lab, at the University of Münster, is a partnership between ERCIS and Arvato CRM Solutions. The Lab combines the academic research and teaching activities of ERCIS and Arvato’s practical experience of delivering tech-enabled Omni-Channel CRM solutions from 110 global locations for many of the world’s best-known brands. Its areas of investigation focus around ‘Processes’, ‘Data’ and ‘Analytics’. The ERCIS network, is an international and inter-disciplinary network of universities and individual researchers in the field of Information Systems. Close collaboration with industry, in terms of an Advisory Board, ensures the practical relevance of ERCIS research and delivers inspiration for innovative research ideas. For more information, including publications, please go to www.ercis.org

The ERCIS - as an interdisciplinary network of researches in the field of Information Systems - takes a holistic view on the interplay of customer data, channel options, and related processes. It also considers the technical infrastructure in terms of "Big Data" as well as the preparation and analysis of customer-specific data. Advanced analytics gives channel-specific insights into customer behaviour, enables a comprehensive segmentation of customers and interaction in the relevant channels.

Arvato CRM Solutions is a leading global provider of omni-channel CRM. With its tech-enabled omni-channel platform and more than 40.000 skilled customer service representatives in > 100 sites in > 20 countries it operates, manages and transforms strategic customer interactions in multiple verticals as HighTech, Banking, Financial Services, Insurances and Healthcare. It provides an excellent base for practice oriented research. The cooperative development of innovative, relevant concepts, algorithms, and solutions is supported by application of state of the art methodologies like design thinking or agile development methods. Arvato CRM Solutions is part of the international service provider Arvato that belongs to Bertelsmann.